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RE: Question for writers in New Zealand and Australia
Subject:RE: Question for writers in New Zealand and Australia From:Fred Ridder <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:<cmartinek -at- zebra -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:08:03 -0500
The point is that it really doesn't matter to the user whether their country shares the same underlying settings as some other country or requires sometihing completely different. It is relatively minor software task to parse an input string and map even a couple hundred possible strings to a much smaller set of actual settings. And the gain in usability--"user friendliness"--from doing so is significant. A user should only need to respond with what country they are located or operating in and the software should deal with establishing the right settings, whether those settings are common to a region or unique to the specific country.
Just my $0.02...
Fred Ridder
> From: CMartinek -at- zebra -dot- com
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:00:25 -0600
> Subject: RE: Question for writers in New Zealand and Australia
>
> Brian, my question was specific and *cultural* in its nature, and directed at a geographical group of writers. The first wave of answers I received focused on technical solutions, not cultural.
>
> Our programmers are looking at having people type in and/or select a country
> for a specific software need. Right now they have defined the entry for your area as
> "australia/nz". (Other entries are "china," brazil," "russia," etc.)
>
> Are there any cultural issues with the two countries being grouped together,
> and for the abbreviation to nz instead of New Zealand? (lowercase is also the
> programmers' choice, but that's another issue.)
>
> In your opinion, what additional information besides that shown above was needed to provide an answer to the cultural question I asked? I felt that what I provided was sufficient for the question at hand.
